Monday, September 4, 2017

New Book & DVDs Available - Mid-Gauge Mastery

I recently finished my new book & DVD set, Mid-Gauge Mastery: Fun Projects for Any Mid-Gauge Knitting Machine. The set consists of a 33-page book and two DVDs.

This one took me quite a long time, because it was a large project. It actually has 13 different projects, and the edited video lessons (detailed instructions on how to make the items) are over five hours long and took two DVDs.

Rather like The Goldilocks Challenge, this is a progressive project book. That is, if you're looking for materials to teach a friend to knit, or you're wanting to learn to knit and actually get some nice knits made, this book starts with very easy projects and then moves up to more challenging and more interesting items. I think that even experienced knitters will find some new ideas here!The book starts with three afghans - a baby
blanket with three panels, with a "worm join" and a "worm edge." Did you know you can use the worm for a join? Next, there's a
fancier baby blanket with strings of hearts joining and edging the
panels. The third afghan is a great stash-buster, gift or charity
project - it uses several thin, industrial cone yarns and a plying
technique to quickly make a giant, "man-sized" afghan. The panels
are joined using a beautiful sew-as-you-go cable join, and then the
blanket is edged with a cable edging.
I put in a fast kitchen scrubbie made from Red Heart Scrubby yarn. I like this sparkly, colorful stuff, and I've found that if I give these away, people ask for more of them. You won't believe how quickly these make up, in just a very few minutes.

The Diagonal Mid-Gauge Scarf is a warm, doubled
scarf made with an easy but very interesting bias technique. With
this little project, I teach seaming and grafting. I made mine with a beautiful self-striping alpaca-blend yarn, which
results in bias striping
patterns
without any extra ends to hide. My friend zipped over to the store and tried out two of the other color ways of that same yarn, and we loved them all.

I have a big triangle shawl with a hand-tooled lace edge. I start from the skinny points and work to the wide area, then do a graft. This results in a terrific mitered lace for the bottom corner. Here's a closeup of that corner.My baby set consists of a raglan pullover, baby pants, and a hat. These are great fun to make, and I admit that I lost count of how many raglan pullovers I made before I realized I was through testing and simply holding up publication. The little pullovers are fast to make, and cover most of the techniques you need for basic sweater making. I have three neckline options - a lapped neckline, a mitered
neckline, and a scalloped collar neckline to go with the girly
baby
pants. My girlie baby set uses scalloped hems in pink and was one of my favorite finished items.

The ear flap hat has child-to-adult sizes. I was hoping this would be an outstanding charity hat because it has the extra warm, doubled, short-rowed ear flaps. I did the shaped top of the hat two ways - the garter bar method for perfectionists and a quicker, needles out of work shortcut method.

The baby kitty hat is the earflap hat with kitten ears and an embroidered face. This was another addictive little project; I just kept making and making them. Cute kid, huh? It's a baby doll.

There's
a mitten, too, in seven sizes, with a shaped palm and a very comfortable
thumb easily attached with more sew-as-you-go tricks. Just for
fun, you can make the Felted Oven Mitt by knitting a big size loosely with a feltable wool and felt it down in your washing machine to the fit and
thickness you want.

The most advanced project in the book is a
sew-as-you-go sock - yes, a sock on your mid-gauge! I have had so many requests from readers for a mid-gauge sock, and I had been concerned about getting a successful sock even though the mid-gauge can't make tiny stitches. This is a nice sock if you're looking for a thicker sock. Ordinary sock yarn is going to be a bit too thin; you'll need the heavier kind.

Would this book work for a bulky KH 260 owner? or is it pretty specifically mid-guage? Really like the patterns I this one vs Goldilocks. Have followed your instruction etc. since the Bond email list, ISM days. Thanks, Lois

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About Me

I'm a lady CPA in Austin, Texas. My husband, John, and our son John write software, and our son Steven is at Texas A&M. I can be mailed at "diana_knits at sbcglobal dot net." I am an avid machine knitter and doing all I can to spread machine knitting joy.